SANDBOX
7,40 x 6,30 m limestone, 17,3 x 31,8 m driftwood from river Danube
entry for the creation of a public artwork to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Like the Academy and its headquarters, the square where it stands has undergone many changes over time. It has been a marshy riverbank, a waterway port, a dusty and muddy market place, a war front, a gesture of great power, a traffic roundabout, a recreational park. Yet most of all, it has become a continuous social battlefield, visually cluttered and overloaded as a result of constant change.
Our proposal takes as its inspiration a surprisingly poignant moment found at a low point in the history of the square: a sandpit on an empty lot left over from the devastation of world war II. A space for playfulness and unprejudiced exploration.
It shapes the chaos of the sand with its own grammar. A space open and accessible to all citizen, offering a glimpse into the unknown. At the same time, it provides science a vantage point from which it can seek it's open relationship with the society it is rooted in. This work is a kind of bridge back and forth, not only to encourage to create freely and to learn, but also to step out of the world of rigid calculation. It strives for completeness, yet it is full of contradictions, since art, although not necessarily irrational, accepts irrationality as a matter of course, and the free and unconstrained association of ideas.
The composition and its role in shaping the space is also such: positioned on the axis of the headquarters and the Széchenyi monument, which is one of the focal points of the space. Yet, reinforcing the unexpected and sudden widening of the street in front of the Academy, the way the 'sand' and 'benches' are arranged makes it an interpreter of social issues on a city scale.
We use stone and wood as materials. The colour of the süttő limestone and its surface suggesting slow but constant movement associates with sand, while the benches made of driftwood extend the space of the work, inviting free access and involuntary contemplation.
7,40 x 6,30 m limestone, 17,3 x 31,8 m driftwood from river Danube
entry for the creation of a public artwork to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Like the Academy and its headquarters, the square where it stands has undergone many changes over time. It has been a marshy riverbank, a waterway port, a dusty and muddy market place, a war front, a gesture of great power, a traffic roundabout, a recreational park. Yet most of all, it has become a continuous social battlefield, visually cluttered and overloaded as a result of constant change.
Our proposal takes as its inspiration a surprisingly poignant moment found at a low point in the history of the square: a sandpit on an empty lot left over from the devastation of world war II. A space for playfulness and unprejudiced exploration.
It shapes the chaos of the sand with its own grammar. A space open and accessible to all citizen, offering a glimpse into the unknown. At the same time, it provides science a vantage point from which it can seek it's open relationship with the society it is rooted in. This work is a kind of bridge back and forth, not only to encourage to create freely and to learn, but also to step out of the world of rigid calculation. It strives for completeness, yet it is full of contradictions, since art, although not necessarily irrational, accepts irrationality as a matter of course, and the free and unconstrained association of ideas.
The composition and its role in shaping the space is also such: positioned on the axis of the headquarters and the Széchenyi monument, which is one of the focal points of the space. Yet, reinforcing the unexpected and sudden widening of the street in front of the Academy, the way the 'sand' and 'benches' are arranged makes it an interpreter of social issues on a city scale.
We use stone and wood as materials. The colour of the süttő limestone and its surface suggesting slow but constant movement associates with sand, while the benches made of driftwood extend the space of the work, inviting free access and involuntary contemplation.